Ventura Bus Lines

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Ventura Bus Lines
Routes 700, 701, 703, 704, 732,

733, 734, 735, 736, 737,
738, 740, 742, 745, 753,
754, 755, 757, 758, 765,
767
Owners Ventura Motors
Brands Ventura,

NationalBus,

MountDandyBus
Livery light blue,

navy blue,

and yellow
Depots
Melbourne Bus Companies
Broadmeadows Coaches Cardinia Transit
Cranbourne Transit Driver Bus Lines
Dyson's Bus Services Eastrans
East West Bus Company Grenda's
Hope Street Bus Lines InvictaBus
Ivanhoe Bus Company Kastoria Bus Lines
Martyrs Bus Service Melbourne Bus Link
McKenzie's Moonee Valley
Moorabbin Transit Moreland Buslines
NationalBus Northern Bus Lines
Panorama Coaches Peninsula Bus Lines
Portsea Reservoir
RyansBus Sita Bus Lines
Skybus Super Shuttle Sunbury Bus Service
Tullamarine Bus Lines US Bus Lines
Ventura Bus Lines Ventura MountDandy
Westrans
Melbourne's public transport
Metlink Metcard myki
Modes of Transport
Trains Trams Buses
Transport Routes
Railway stations Tram routes Bus routes
Operating Companies
V/Line Connex Melbourne Yarra Trams

Ventura is a privately owned bus and coach operator in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As of 2005, it is the largest private bus operator in Melbourne. As a Melbourne bus company, it operates a number of bus routes under contract from the Victorian State Government. The company has recently purchased the Melbourne operations of National Express' National Bus Company for A$45 million, and also owns Mount Dandy Bus. Routes operated by Ventura are predominantly located in Melbourne's eastern and northern suburbs. It also operates EastCoast, a business which services Scania buses and trucks.

Ventura buses feature a distinct light-blue livery, with a navy-blue stripe running horizontally across the sides of the bus, and Ventura's logo in yellow. New National buses also use this livery.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Early history

Ventura was founded in 1924 by a war veteran named Harry Cornwall. Cornwall had been an employee of Track & Kintrack, an operator based in St Kilda, but decided to form his own bus company when his employer refused to let him run a bus service along dirt roads through what was then Melbourne's outer east. Cornwall began operating a bus route between Box Hill and the city, and later running buses along dirt tracks between Box Hill and Mentone, which roughly equates to the modern 700 bus route. Its first depot was the petrol station on the corner of Station Street and Canterbury Road, in Box Hill South.

[edit] 1950s - 1970s

Between 1952 and 1969, Ventura purchased Clarinda Transport, High Street Road Bus Service and Knibbs Bus Service. It also added a service between Blackburn and Clayton (roughly equivalent to the current 703 service), added Waverley and East Burwood services, and (in 1957) opened its Oakleigh South depot at the corner of Centre and Warrigal Roads. Also during this time-frame, Ventura closed its Box Hill South depot and replaced it with a new depot at Mahoney's Road, East Burwood.

In 1969 purchased several bus routes around Mitcham from C Young. In 1970 Boronia Bus Lines was acquired; the two purchases added 12 route services to the company.

[edit] 1980s

In 1987, Ventura acquired Bentleigh Bus Lines, Rennies Bus Services, Willis Bus Services and Hawthorn Bus Services. As a result of these pruchases, it sold its East Burwood depot and replaced it with its Knoxfield depot.

[edit] Quince's

In 1988, the then Metropolitan Transit Authority called for tenders on all of Melbourne's bus routes. Prior to the completion of tenders, Met employees reportedly told the Driver Group (then operating under the Waverley Transit brand) 'not to bother' entering tenders for some of their existing routes. At the completion of the tender process, 7 bus routes previously operated by Ventura, and 3 previously operated by Waverley Transit were tendered out to a company called Quince's, which had 60 buses used mostly for charter and school services.

In the case Waverley Transit V Metropolitan Transit Authority, Waverley Transit launched a Supreme Court challenge to the results of the tendering process. The verdict deemed that the State Government had acted inappropriately during the tendering process, and as the contract between the State Government and Quince's was illegal, thus restored the bus routes to Ventura and Waverley Transit. In the wake of this verdict, the Met launched an appeal, with Waverley Transit launching a counter-appeal; the cases lasted into the early 1990s. The final verdict of these cases pointed out that the licenses to operate bus routes, as well as the bus routes themselves, were legally the property of the respective bus companies and not the State Government.

In spite of this, Quince received the rights to operate a number of new cross-suburban bus routes cutting across a number of bus operator territories, including a route from Brighton to Lilydale.

[edit] 1990s

In 1998, Quince's lost their bus routes. Ironically, Quince's long cross-suburban bus routes were broken up, with sections divided between Ventura and Driver (for instance, the Monash University - Brighton leg of one Quince's route became part of Ventura route 703, the Glen Waverley - Mitcham section became part of Ventura route 736).

In 1999, the Minister for Transport, Peter Batchelor, released a Press Release congratulating Ventura on having provided 75 years of service. At the time of the press release, Ventura was already Victoria's 3rd largest bus company (Source).

[edit] 2000s

In 2000, Ventura purchased Mount Dandy Bus. In 2004, it purchased the National Bus Company from the National Express Group for A$45 million, becoming the largest private bus operator in Melbourne. While the company has announced that it will continue to use the National Bus Company brand until bus contracts come under re-tender in 2007, new National Buses are painted in the Ventura livery. Through National Express, Ventura purchased what remains of the old government fleet, which is often of particular interest to railfans, though this section of the fleet will be phased out over the coming years.

[edit] 2002 Onwards

On the 5th of August 2002, the Victorian State Government introduced the first SmartBus service (as a trial project) run by Ventura that replaced the old timetable of the 703 Middle Brighton Railway Station - Blackburn Railway Station with a new, high frequency SmartBus service on route 703 that offers:

  • More services
  • Better daytime frequency (Every 15 minutes during the daytime, every 30 minutes before and after the daytime period)
  • Longer operating hours (Services to operate beyond midnight on weeknights)
  • Real-time passenger information displays
  • Better reliability

The other route which was introduced on the same day were the combined 888/889 route service operated by Grenda Bus Services on Springvale Road from Nunawading Railway Station to Chelsea Railway Station.

Due to the success of the initial SmartBus trial (patronage increased by up to 25%), the Victorian State Government have introduced another SmartBus service that Ventura operates, the route 700 service from Box Hill Railway Station to Mordialloc Railway Station along Warrigal Road. This was implemented on 14th of June 2005, in which this service improvement was delivered after a delay of a few months.

[edit] Bus Fleet

Ventura bought many Leyland buses between the 1950s and the 1980s. These were Leyland Leopards and Tiger Cubs, then later on the company purchased many Leyland Tigers. A number of these are still in service, but will probably be sold off in coming years. Ventura also purchased a substantial number of ex-Adelaide Leyland Worldmasters.

The purchases of Bentleigh Bus Lines/Hawthorn Bus Service saw the fleet expand further. Many non-Leyland buses joined the fleet including Mercedes-Benz, Denning Elwoods, Volvo B10M's, Leyland Leopards, Isuzu ECR and Bedfords. Most of these buses were sold off by the early 1990s but the Elwoods survived in the fleet until 2001 (although a small number were sold off in 1993) and the B10M's remain in the fleet to this day.

Ventura purchased a batch of 10 Mercedes-Benz O305's from the STA in Sydney in 1991. These were withdrawn between 1999 and 2001.

When Ventura needed some new buses in 1992. Leyland had stopped producing chassis, so they had to find another supplier, they purchased two Scania L113s and a Volvo B10M with Volgren bodies for evaluation. They decided to purchase more Scanias after the evaluation period.

Scania has been the main chassis used in the Ventura fleet. L113 chassis were bought in high and low floor format with both Volgren (delivered from 1992-98) and North Coast bodies (1998-99) and L94UBs with North Coast and Custom Coaches bodies entered the fleet between 1999 and 2006.

Ventura purchased a pair of Mercedes-Benz O500 chassis with North Coast bodies in 2003 for evaluation.

There is also a batch of Designline MAN's delivered to South Oakleigh depot by end of December 2006, and have been in service since 2 January 2007.

Few of them are in blue Ventura livery and the rest is put into the smartbus livery that adorns the Grendas and Eastrans 900 Smartbuses.

[edit] Depots

Former Depots:

  • Box Hill South
  • East Burwood

Current Depots:

  • Knoxfield
  • Oakleigh South
  • Croydon
  • Doncaster East (National brand)
  • North Fitzroy (National brand)

[edit] Acquired Companies

  • Bentleigh Bus Lines
  • Boronia Bus Lines
  • Clarinda Transport
  • C Young
  • Hawthorn Bus Services
  • High Street Road Bus Service
  • Knibbs Bus Service
  • Mount Dandy Bus
  • National Bus Company
  • Rennies Bus Services
  • Willis Bus Services

[edit] Brands

Brands operated by Ventura Motors include:

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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